Canadians Panic As Food Prices Soar On Collapsing Currency
It was just yesterday when we documented the continuing slide in the loonie, which is suffering mightily in the face of oil’s inexorable decline.
As regular readers are no doubt acutely aware, Canada is struggling through a dramatic economic adjustment, especially in Alberta, the heart of the country’s oil patch. Amid the ongoing crude carnage the province has seen soaring property crime, rising food bank usage and, sadly, elevated suicide rates, as Albertans struggle to comprehend how things up north could have gone south (so to speak) so quickly.
The plunging loonie “can only serve to worsen the death of the ‘Canadian Dream'” we said on Tuesday.
As it turns out, we were exactly right.
The currency’s decline is having a pronounced effect on Canadians’ grocery bills. As Bloomberg reminds us, Canada imports around 80% of its fresh fruits and vegetables. When the loonie slides, prices for those good soar. “With lower-income households tending to spend a larger portion of income on food, this side effect of a soft currency brings them the most acute stress,” Bloomberg continues.
Of course with the layoffs piling up, you can expect more households to fall into the “lower-income” category where they will have to struggle to afford things like $3 cucumbers, $8 cauliflower, and $15 Frosted Flakes. Have a look at the following tweets which underscore just how bad it is in Canada’s grocery aisles.
Three bucks. For a cucumber.
